


Carry Me Through

by momentsintimex



Series: Everything Happens [3]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Gen, Grieving, Healing, Letters, sorry in advance, the last of the three letters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 12:24:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13681629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/momentsintimex/pseuds/momentsintimex
Summary: Cynthia has never had a problem talking to her son’s grave. From the very first day she visited after the funeral, she’s been able to ramble for hours if someone would let her. Talking about every little thing that she knows he never cared about and still wouldn’t if he were alive, but it brings her peace. Brings her a sense of comfort that nothing else has in the weeks since this nightmare began, when Cynthia found her son lifeless at the base of a tree he had spent years visiting.But now as she sits here with her hand resting against the headstone as if she lets go it’ll disappear, she’s at a loss for words. Because in her other hand is a letter from her little boy that he had left behind, and she’s read it three times since finding it less than an hour ago but it hasn’t made her feel any better, it hasn’t brought her any closure.It’s just made her wonder how she didn’t notice anything was this bad before it had ended like this.





	Carry Me Through

**Author's Note:**

> title is from "Carry Me Through" by Dave Barnes
> 
> no TWs that i could find, but if you find any please let me know!

Sometimes if Cynthia closes her eyes tight enough, she feels like this is all a nightmare.

Like maybe at some point she’ll wake up and it’ll all just be a bad dream, and she’ll be able to walk down the hall and knock on her son’s bedroom door, waiting for him to answer. He’d probably be annoyed, but he’d be alive, and that’s maybe all she could’ve really asked for now that they’re here.

But then she opens her eyes, and she’s met with the harsh reality that her son is gone, that no amount of praying or squeezing her eyes shut is going to bring her little boy back. Nothing she says or does will have him magically standing in front of her again, and she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to just keep going on with her life when one of the people who meant the most to her was gone because he took his own life and she hadn’t even noticed he felt that bad.

The day she found him at the base of the oak tree is a day that’s a blur, honestly. She doesn’t remember much, just the panic that rose in her when Connor didn’t come home from school alone and he didn’t come home with Zoe when she was done jazz band, and how the police said there was nothing they could do to help until more time had passed and he’s not just considered a runaway like he would be because of his age.

“He’s probably with those drug dealers that graduated last year. I thought I saw them hanging around after school today, probably waiting for him,” Zoe shrugs, grabbing a snack from the fridge. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Mom. He does this all the time, why should this time be any different? It’s just Connor.”

Cynthia shakes her head. “No,” She says quietly, her voice scarily even. “This… this behavior is not like Connor. Your brother… your brother doesn’t disappear like this and ignore all calls or texts. I usually hear something from him by now, even when he’s mad at us.”

Which is exactly why she called her husband and then called her son a few more times praying that maybe one time he’d answer. But when he doesn’t she then declared that she and Larry needed to go look for him if no one else would help, and she wasn’t returning home until he was with her.

Larry agrees, and before they have a chance to even think about telling Zoe that they’re leaving they’re in their separate cars going in separate directions, promising that when they find him they would call.

She doesn’t know why she chose to check the park first. It's the first place that sprung to her mind, the one place that she thought Connor may have run to. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’s run off there, and something in her mind is hoping that maybe this time he’d be there too. She doesn’t even realize she’s driving there until she pulls into the parking lot and notices the large playground she can remember spending so many evenings at when Connor was little, and she just. Takes a minute to compose herself.

And finds herself thinking back to those days where the only bad times they had at this park was when Connor would carry on that they had to leave to go home for dinner. How he’d cry and carry on, beg for five more minutes. Try the best bargaining techniques his 5 year old mind could think of.

She doesn't know when things began to change. She can’t really pinpoint it because it's been so long that she doesn’t know where to begin. Sometimes she wonders if she’s blocked it out of her mind, because Connor had always been such an easygoing child that this almost came out of nowhere. That the battles and the angry moments and everything that came with having someone like Connor as a son were a shock and something they couldn’t have ever prepared for if they tried.

She forces herself out of the car when the song on the radio finishes, smoothing out her jacket and taking a deep breath. There’s no one else there, the park having closed not long before when the sun began to set, but a closing time wouldn’t have stopped Connor. It didn’t any other time he’s run away from home the last few years.

She sees his feet before she sees him. They’re outstretched, the worn in and peeling combat boots unmistakably his. She pauses. Takes a deep breath. And forces herself to walk up to the top of the hill where she’s going to be face to face with her son.

Her little boy. Who’s barely breathing and so _pale_ and his lips are blue, and she… she knows he’s gone. She knows this is a bad situation, that even though he’s breathing it’s not a normal breath and she isn’t sure that if they even get his breathing back to normal that his brain won’t be damaged because she doesn’t know how long he’s been like this or how long he’s even been out here.

She falls to her knees. Feels her son’s pulse. And calls 911 hysterically, begging for help, that her son is dying and she doesn’t know what to do with him. The operator offers to stay on the line with her, calm her down and walk her through some things she could do for her son. But Cynthia declines, hangs up the phone, and immediately calls her husband.

“I found him, Larry. Oh my god, I found him and he’s barely breathing and there’s… there’s a pill bottle here but nothing is in it and I don’t know how much he took and oh my god… help is on the way but it’s not fast enough, and —“

“Cynthia,” Larry cuts her off. Forcing her to take a deep breath. “Help is on the way. They’re going to do everything they can. Just… just stay with him.”

And Cynthia does. Holding her phone to her ear with one hand, and holding his hand in her free hand. “Keep breathing, baby. I’m right here, it’s okay, I’m not leaving. Come on, Connor, keep breathing,” She repeats, squeezing his hand as if it’ll bring him back to life. As if he’ll wake up and just… be fine.

She listens to the EMTs talking about his airways and the pills by his side and how long it had been, but Cynthia is frozen in place with no answers to give them. She doesn’t know where he got the pills or how long it’s been since he took them or really anything other than the fact that he had run away and done this alone, but she’s allowed in the back of the ambulance and she cries as they put a breathing tube in and yell something about trying to revive him all while she’s holding his hand and desperately trying to breathe life back into him. As if her touch could cure everything.

But this isn’t like the time he was 6 and fell and broke his arm. She couldn’t hold him until his cries quieted down, she couldn’t get him to feel better with a popsicle and a movie marathon while he’s cuddled into his side. Now it’s out of her hands, and that may be what scares her the most. That she’s completely helpless in this situation.

She’s forced into the waiting room when they arrive at the hospital, where somehow her husband is already waiting, pulling her into his arms while she sobs into his chest. “He can’t even breathe on his own, Larry. I watched them put a breathing tube down our son’s throat and talked about trying to revive him,” She sobs.

He can barely understand her.

He just… rubs her back. Kisses the top of her head, and leads her to sit down in a chair while they wait. “I’m sure they’re doing everything they can. We’ll know more soon and then I’m sure we can see him.”

Cynthia doesn’t believe him. But she doesn’t say anything, she just. Leans against her husband and watches the clock tick painfully slow in hopes that somehow it’ll speed up and bring news about Connor faster.

When the doctor walks out and explains that Connor is too far gone, that there’s nothing they can do but keep him comfortable until he passes, she wishes the clock would’ve stopped. She wishes she had gotten to him sooner, because then maybe he would be alive and the hospital stay would be a short one and they could begin healing and getting Connor the proper help he needed.

Instead she spends the rest of her night standing at her son’s bedside, watching him as as he takes his final breaths. Holds his hand the whole time. And cries harder than she ever thought she could as she watches him slip away.

There’s a lot of things that neither Cynthia or Larry had thought about when it came to planning their child’s funeral. They have to plan the funeral itself, the visitation. If they wanted him cremated, and when they decided that they didn’t, if they wanted it open or closed casket. They had to write an obituary, meet with counselors and make sure Zoe was doing okay and… it was a lot for Cynthia to take in when she was running on almost no sleep considering every time she closed her eyes she saw her son laying against the base of the tree.

It only occurred to her three weeks after the funeral when everything began to settle down that Connor hadn’t left a note. There had been no trace of anything related to a suicide letter when they found him, and Larry had gone through his room just a few days after he passed and found nothing either.

She tries not to think about the fact that she’ll never really know how her son felt leading up to this because he left nothing for them to read. Instead she waits a few more days, then forces herself to go into his room at the advice of a grief counselor, even if it’s to straighten some things up and put things away. A beginning to healing.

She’s almost finished for the day when she notices a trading card from when Connor played baseball laying on top of his bedside table drawer. He looked so happy, so full of life. It was almost as if his eyes were sparkling in the photo, and all Cynthia can think about is a few short years later this Connor in this photo was no longer in their lives. That he had changed so dramatically to the point where that Connor doesn’t exist anymore.

She takes the trading card, walking back down the hall and into her bedroom, wanting to keep it closer to her. She opens the bedside drawer. And her breath gets caught in her throat.

Because sitting on top of all her things is an envelope with handwriting on the front that she can’t mistake for anyone else’s.

_Mom._

Connor had stopped writing letters years ago, stopped leaving them for Cynthia to find on her pillow that night when she was going to bed. And then he stopped really showing any affection to Cynthia not long after. The loving little boy had been replaced with one who fought with her over every little thing she would talk to him about, spent many nights sneaking out to get high or buy drugs off of kids from school, and just. Wasn’t her little Connor that she remembered from just a few years before.

She had accepted that he hadn’t left a note not long after she realized that he didn’t. Accepted that that was just Connor, that he wouldn’t have bothered with writing something to people who had let him down. She didn’t think they deserved one, really. She knows there was a million things that they could’ve done better, but they didn’t and now her son is gone and there was no note for her to have closure from. But she had accepted that she deserved that.

Only now she’s sitting on her bed with tears in her eyes and an envelope sitting in her lap that she can’t deny is form her son and she just… wonders if she even deserves to open it. Wonders if Connor should’ve even left her something when she had let him down so many times.

But then she remembers that her son is gone and this is the only thing she has left from him that is his own handwriting and she knows that she needs to open this. She needs to know what the letter says and prays that maybe one day this will bring her the closure that she needs.

Her eyes are already blurred with tears as she pulls it out and sets it on her lap, taking a minute to compose herself. Her son had left a note after all, and she doesn’t know what it’s going to say or if it’s going to bring her any comfort at all, but in so many ways she just… she knows that this is the one thing tangible that she has of her son besides the little possessions that were left in his room.

_Hey Mom,_

_I’m sorry that you’re reading this. When you find this note I’m probably gone, and I’m sorry for putting you through that. This is a different kind of awful thing I’ve done to you isn’t it? Like I’ve always been pretty awful, but I’m guessing you would say this was the worst thing._

_I’ve been planning this for a while honestly. I think you knew that considering I’ve tried before. I just can’t do this anymore. I know I’m hurting you and dad and Zoe by being here, and I know that you guys will be happier if I’m just gone. You won’t have to worry about me ruining things or freaking out about something that really didn’t matter anymore. You can do what you want now and you can be happy and move on from all of this and me, you know._

_I always noticed that you were trying to help me. I know I was ungrateful about it and I took a lot of anger out on you and we got in more fights than we should have, but I noticed you trying to help me. I’m sorry I wasn’t more cooperative. I’m sorry that I ruined it and I wasn’t grateful and I just didn’t listen to anything you thought would help. Maybe we wouldn’t be here if I would’ve listened, but I always ruin things so it’s natural that I ruined this as well._

_I don’t want you to sit and cry about me all the time. I don’t want you to dwell over me being gone. I want you to be a normal family. Take Zoe on vacations that she’s wanted to go on but that I would’ve ruined. Be happy, make new memories. It’s fine, I wouldn’t be mad at you or haunt you or anything. I just think you guys deserve it after everything that I put you guys through._

_I’m sorry for doing this mom, but I promise you that this is for the best. This is the best option for you guys and I’m sure of it._

_I love you, Mom. Thank you for trying to help me when you did._

_Your son,_

_Connor_

“Oh, Connor,” Cynthia whispers. Watches her tears fall against the messy handwritten letter. And runs her fingers over the pen, smudged in places and the handwriting getting increasingly worse the longer it went on. “Baby, I’m so sorry.”

She glances at the clock. She has a few hours before Zoe will be home from school and she knows that Larry will probably be at the office late catching up on work that he missed in the days after Connor’s death. And she decides that maybe going to the cemetery is a good idea right now. That everything else that she has to do can wait.

She drives over there numbly, turning on some talk radio show that she usually listened to when she was stressed, trying to follow the topics until she finds herself parking just next to Connor’s row in the cemetery. She finds herself shutting her car off and grabbing the letter out of the cupholder without thinking twice, forcing herself to get out of the car.

Connor's situated at the end of a row, right where his new headstone had just been installed. His plot is still largely dirt, but the grass is slowly starting to grow back in just before the weather turns from fall to winter, and Cynthia thinks that it almost looks put together. It almost looks exactly how she envisions her son’s plot to look.

She’ll never get used to thinking about that.

Cynthia bends down, running her fingers over the granite as she sits in the grass next to her son’s grave. A place she never thought she’d be. “Hi, sweetheart,” She says quietly, her hand resting just above his name. “Sorry it’s been a little while since I’ve come to visit. I just… it’s hard seeing the headstone now. Makes it all feel more real. That you’re gone.”

She takes a shaky breath. Tries to calm herself down before she talks again. “I found the note you put in my drawer,” She says. Manages to form a small smile. “I swear I’ve been in there hundreds of times since you left, but that has never been there. That has… that has never been laying right on top.” She smiles. And can’t help but think about Connor leaving it there to confuse her days later.

“I’m sorry that we didn’t get you help soon enough,” She begins, but that alone didn’t feel like enough. “You say that I tried to help you, but baby, you’re gone now. And clearly I didn’t do enough. Because if I did then you would still be here and I wouldn’t be visiting your grave.” She bites her lip until it bleeds, trying not to sob in the middle of a cemetery where other people are also visiting their loved ones.

Cynthia has never had a problem talking to her son’s grave. From the very first day she visited after the funeral, she’s been able to ramble for hours if someone would let her. Talking about every little thing that she knows he never cared about and still wouldn’t if he were alive, but it brings her peace. Brings her a sense of comfort that nothing else has in the weeks since this nightmare began, when Cynthia found her son lifeless at the base of a tree he had spent years visiting.

But now as she sits here with her hand resting against the headstone as if she lets go it’ll disappear, she’s at a loss for words. Because in her other hand is a letter from her little boy that he had left behind, and she’s read it three times since finding it less than an hour ago but it hasn’t made her feel any better, it hasn’t brought her any closure.

It’s just made her wonder how she didn’t notice anything was this bad before it had ended like this.

“I started going through your room today. Cleaning things up, putting things back to where they were," She mumbles. Trying desperately to fill the void. “I found some books on your nightstand that I’m guessing you loved. I… I think I’m going to read them, maybe try to see how you saw the world. I just don’t know what else to do, Connor,” She says. And the tears that she had been trying to avoid start to fall.

She unfolds the letter with shaking hands, skimming over it again. “Connor, you shouldn’t have to blame yourself. I wasn’t doing enough for you, I wasn’t getting you everything you needed, and you shouldn’t have had to tell me that you needed more. I am your mother, I should’ve seen that things were getting worse.”

She can’t stop the tears now. They’re falling alarmingly quickly, landing on her jeans as she sits in the dirt next to her son’s headstone, praying and searching for answers as to where she goes next. “You say that we’re going to be happier without you here, but baby, that couldn’t be any less true. I don’t know if I”ll ever be as happy as I was again, because such a huge part of me is missing. I just… any vacation we go on, anything we do, I’m going to wish you were there. We’re all going to wish you were there. And I know things aren’t ever going to be the same, but what I do know is that if there was _anything_ me or your father or your sister could do to bring you back right now, we’d do it in a heartbeat.”

She looks up, noticing that some other people had left and it was just her left in this section. “I’m going to come visit you more, I promise. I’ll tell you what I thought about the books when I’m done, but I promise you I won’t go this long without visiting again, okay?” She says as if he’s going to answer.

She knows he won’t.

“But, in the meantime, if you want to keep sending me little signs that you’re still here and you’re watching over us and showing us that somehow things are going to be okay.” She leans over. Kisses the granite of her son’s headstone softly. And rubs her hand against the top. “I’ll be back soon, baby. I love you to the moon and back, just like I always have.”

Forcing herself to walk back to the car is the hardest thing Cynthia has done. Her feet feel like lead, and if it was possible for her to just like, move in and sleep at her son’s grave for the rest of her life, she thinks she would do it.

She takes a moment when she reaches the car to sit in the front seat and just compose herself. Uses a tissue to wipe under her eyes, fixes her makeup. Checks her phone, sends a quick text back to Larry and texts Zoe to see if she needs anything from the store on her way home. Because while she’s out she might as well get some things done, she thinks.

Even when she feels like she can’t go on because her son is dead and she feels like maybe it’s her fault that she didn’t find a way to help him before it was too late.

She drops her phone into the cupholder, turning on the car and changing the radio station.

Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division comes on. The one song that Connor didn’t mind listening to with her in the car when they would go places together. The one song that he would always hum along to with her.

And she starts crying again. Laughing through her tears, shaking her head. “Connor,” She whispers, letting her head fall back against the headrest. “I know you’re here now, I know you heard me,” She smiles. “I love you.” She shifts the car into drive, turns the radio up too loud for what’s appropriate in a cemetery, and hums along.

Because even though the pain of losing her son is all too much to deal with most days, and even though most days getting out of bed is the biggest accomplishment of her day, Connor is still with her. His physical being is gone, she won’t ever get to hear his voice or his laugh in person again, or even get to hug him or run her fingers through his long hair when he was sick and didn’t mind her doting over him, but his spirit lives on.

She doesn’t know if she’ll ever feel okay again. She doesn’t know if her life will ever properly move on the way she wants it to, the way she knows it should. But knowing that Connor was still sending her little signs on the days where it didn’t feel like she’d ever be happy again, she thinks maybe it will be okay.

Maybe one day at a time they’d be able to get through this, and somehow the healing would finally make things even the slightest bit easier.

**Author's Note:**

> so there it is, the last of the three letters! this one was the most difficult for me to write, which was unexpected considering i love writing the dynamic between Cynthia/Connor in most other situations haha.
> 
> the Joy Division song comes from the fact that on the Cynthia and Connor playlists that Jennifer and Mike made for DEH's Spotify, they both put that song on their playlists. 
> 
> you can find me on tumblr if you'd like :) for-f0rever.tumblr.com
> 
> thank you for reading! i hope you enjoyed these three little letters :)


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